In Praise of Folly

The greatest of humanist scholars, Desiderius Erasmus
was one of the men who ushered in the Renaissance.
The leading intellectual of his era, today his most
popular work is In Praise of Folly, a satire that even at its
most biting is animated by a warm and lively wit. To accompany this new edition, we have commissioned an introduction from Eamon Duffy, whose Saints and Sinners was recently published by Folio. Erasmus’ playful
prose is presented in Betty Radice’s fresh, lively
translation, with notes from the scholar A. H. T. Levi.
Witty and surreal interpretations of Hans Holbein’s original
woodcuts from the award-winning artist Matthew
Richardson make a delightful illustrative accompaniment.

‘In Praise of Folly is both the most
notorious and in some ways the
most characteristic work of
the greatest European intellectual
of the sixteenth century’
EAMON DUFFY

Production Details

Bound in paper, printed with a design by Matthew Richardson

Set in Aldus with Blackmoor display

200 pages; frontispiece and 8 colour illustrations

9" x 5¾"

Erasmus’ playful prose

Written during a stay with his great friend Thomas More
(the Latin title Encomium Moriae is a pun on More’s name),
Erasmus uses a tongue-in-cheek personification of Folly
to mock human foolishness, especially of those who
consider themselves wise. Five centuries on, it’s impossible
not to smile at his waspish description of
philosophers who act ‘as if they were private secretaries
to nature’, lawyers ‘the most self-satisfied class of people’,
or a pedant who regards grammatical mistakes as ‘a thing
to go to war about’. Erasmus could be caustic, lambasting
the failings of a corrupt clergy, including the Pope’s ‘vast
sea of profiteering’. He attacked the sale of indulgences;
pilgrimages; even theological argument itself. What was
the point, he demanded, of debating the immaculate
conception when scripture does not mention it? Perhaps
unsurprisingly, In Praise of Folly was banned by the
Catholic Church. Yet Erasmus himself was a reformer not
a rebel. There can be little doubt that had it been written
a few years later, In Praise of Folly would have contained
some trenchant criticisms of the folly of Luther to sit
alongside the ‘varieties of silliness’ that he lambasts in
day-to-day Christian life. For, as Erasmus states, ‘man’s
mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to
falsehood than to truth’. Erasmus’ great skill is to help
his readers delight in human folly even as he exposes it.

A Lucianic satire

According to Erasmus, In Praise of Folly was begun to
while away the hours on horseback as he returned from a
prolonged visit to Italy. It was completed during a week’s stay
in Thomas More’s house in Bucklersbury Street, in the City
of London, where Erasmus was recuperating from a kidney
infection. The book was intended as a public testimony to the
two men’s friendship. The Latin title of the work, Encomium
Moriae, means literally ‘praise of folly’, but was also a
joking play on More’s name (More frequently used the same
pun to present himself, ironically, as foolish or dim-witted).
At one point in the book there is an anecdote about ‘someone
of [Folly’s] name’, a joker who presents his young wife with
glass beads which he claims are priceless jewels. The story is
clearly about More himself, who relished practical jokes of
this kind.

Erasmus had gone to Italy to pursue his Greek studies, and
was befriended by many cardinals and prelates. But he also
saw at first hand the secular ambition of the Renaissance
papacy and its court at its most blatant. He was in Bologna in
November 1507 when Pope Julius II rode in at the head of his
own army to take possession of the city. So both Erasmus’
immersion in the Greek classics, and his disgust at the worldliness
of the Church, dominate In Praise of Folly. The book is
a Lucianic satire, a declamation in which Folly herself speaks,
clothed in cap and bells and flaunting her foolish femininity.
(Erasmus, like More, was prone to misogyny.)
An extract from Eamon Duffy's introduction

About Desiderius Erasmus

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536), born in Rotterdam, was
a writer, scholar and humanist. After six years in an Augustinian
monastery, he became private secretary to the bishop
of Cambrai, and was ordained priest (1492). He studied and
taught in Paris, then moved to England in 1498, becoming professor
of divinity and of Greek at Cambridge. Here he wrote
Encomium Moriae (In Praise of Folly, 1509), which he dedicated
to his close friend Thomas More. After 1514 he lived
alternately in Basel and England, then Louvain (1517–21),
before finally returning to Basel. He published the first Greek
text of the New Testament, as well as his Adages and Colloquies,
and numerous editions of classical and patristic authors.

About Eamon Duffy

Eamon Duffy is professor of the history of Christianity,
Cambridge University, and a fellow and former president of
Magdalene College, Cambridge. His books include The Stripping
of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1570
(1992), The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion
in an English Village (2001), Faith of Our Fathers: Reflections
on Catholic Tradition (2004), Saints and Sinners: A History
of the Popes (published by The Folio Society in 2009), and
Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the
Tudor Reformations (2012). He is a frequent broadcaster on
radio and television.

About Matthew Richardson

Matthew Richardson studied in London at Middlesex
University and Central St Martin’s. His work has been used
extensively in publishing and design and recent commissions
include a project with the V&A, using their vast collection as
source material, and imagery for Alexander Borodin’s Prince
Igor at the ENO. He has also illustrated Gabriel García Márquez
for Penguin Books, and provided illustrations for cult
classic The Meowmorphosis for Quirk Books. Matthew is a
regular contributor to the Guardian and New Yorker and has
won several prizes, including V&A Illustration Awards for
editorial and book publishing and was the winner of the 2011
Book Illustration Competition for Albert Camus’ The Outsider,
subsequently published by The Folio Society. Matthew
is a frequent speaker at art colleges across the UK and teaches
part-time at Norwich University of the Arts.